This week, I finished the final watercolor in my Rittenhouse Square series. All four paintings were created on site, outdoors in Philly. It started in spring. My paints dried quickly in summer. I’m quite proud of fall. Winter was warm this year.

Union Square stole my heart. Something about this corner of New York is different. The materialism fades, the cliques meld, and eye contact with strangers is made. If I lived near NYC I would paint this park all the time. This was painted on site, looking down Broadway from the steps of Union Square.

The heart of New York is obvious. It’s the people. During my visit I drew residents and tourists alike. Even as an outsider, it was easy to make out who was who. I drew them in parks, in museums, at protests, and on trains. It was my goal to draw fast enough to not get caught. Here are a couple pages of my discreet sketches.

Up until now, my paintings of the Occupy Wall Street movement have been from photographs. It is not very fulfilling to paint from photographs. I went to New York so I could paint from life. And I painted a lot.

It was shocking how many people at the demonstration were not protesting. It seemed there were more journalists and people taking pictures then there were occupiers. That was a common theme in New York. New Yorkers seems to prefer recording and observing life more than participating. The following sketch is of the back of a CNN reporter. Her lights were bright, and her cameras never stopped running.

It was tough to get a good painting spot in the hectic, protesting park. There were marches and performance art, reporters and giant puppets. The landscape was ever changing. The people occupying Wall Street were constantly cleaning. They moved tents to scrub the sidewalk. There was a whole crew of people in masks that did nothing but wander the park and sweep. When I was there, the square smelled more like Pine-Sol than a corner of New York.

The last painting I completed of those standing for the 99% is a little more abstract than my usual watercolors. I wanted to capture the constant motion, the idea that there is something happening here.

I’m painting the New York protesters, but I’m not painting the words on their signs. The Occupy Wall Street movement has no spokesperson. There are no slogans or catch phrases. The beauty of the occupation lies with its inability to be marketed. It does not matter to me what the signs say. These paintings are about the people.

Painting little snippets of life on any given street is becoming a favorite past time of mine. The following two paintings are of practically random buildings. They are both quite small works. Each was completed in a relatively short amount of time. I feel the speed in which they were painted contribute to their intimacy and vitality.